All the steamers we met were more or less crowded with passengers, the
visages of many of whom bore traces of fever and ague, and who were,
doubtless, removing to a healthier climate. This insidious disease often
terminates fatally in the cities and districts skirting the swamps of
Louisiana, and, to avoid its baneful effects, the more affluent people
migrate south-west or north when the sickly season sets in. The yellow
fever is also very fatal in such situations, and annually claims numbers
of victims.
We had by this time reached that latitude where perpetual summer reigns.
The banks of the mighty Mississippi, which has for ages rolled on in
increasing grandeur, present to the eye a wilderness of sombre scenery,
indescribably wild and romantic. The bays, formed by the current, are
choked with palmetto and other trees, and teem with alligators,
water-snakes, and freshwater turtle, the former basking in the sun in
conscious security. Overhead, pelicans, paroquets, and numberless other
"Strange bright birds on their starry wings,
Bear the rich hues of all glorious things;"
while the gorgeous magnolia, in luxuriant bloom, and a thousand other
evergreens, on shore, vie with voluptuous aquatic flowers to bewilder
and delight the astonished traveller, accustomed hitherto only to the
more unassuming productions of the sober north.
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